


take it back

by thinkatory



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Codependency, Dark Side Rey, F/M, Force Choking (Star Wars), Grief/Mourning, Light Dom/sub, Seduction to the Dark Side, The Dark Side of the Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:34:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23930899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinkatory/pseuds/thinkatory
Summary: The last image stays in her mind, flickering but intense, the young girl weeping as her parents disappeared from her sight forever.Everything has been taken from you, Rey.Take it back.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 10
Kudos: 19
Collections: May the 4th Be With You Star Wars Fanworks Exchange 2020





	take it back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darkrosaleen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkrosaleen/gifts).



> This is a little idfest I decided to share. Dark Side Rey is hard to pin down, but I just decided to play with some of her issues here. I hope you like this!

Rey feels Ben a step behind her everywhere she goes.

It's a problem, because she knows he's not there. She knows that none of them truly die, but he _isn't there_. She would know his hot gaze on her back even if there was simply a gathering of the Force bearing his heart there behind her. It's not him.

His memory haunts her, and weighs on her back. It's tolerable for the first week or two, but then the dreams start, numb sort of dreams where she simply feels Ben beside her, a quiet, mute creature of shadows who will never leave her side. It prickles at her day and night.

Ben may be somewhere, but he's not here. What she's stuck with is the shadow of what might have been, had fate in the name of Palpatine not intervened so completely with their lives. What she's stuck with is the absence of Ben, a dead space behind her, beside her, that should be filled by him.

In spite of this, she does good. She does the right thing. She does what Luke Skywalker, in the times of his naivete, would have done.

It's the only thing she can do.

* * *

No one can say Rey isn't strong. It takes two months of the strain of the dead space around her before she begins to hunt for some kind of relief, some way out. She numbs herself to push off the fear and the doubt that comes along with seeking the kind of help she needs.

No one could bear to deal with a constant reminder of loneliness after the life she's had, not even a Jedi. No one could resist the call of what she's found.

No one could resist the work in the texts that she's procured.

 _There is only one way to bring back the dead,_ the Sith text says, on tattered pages.

* * *

Rey stares at the pages of the book by the light of her campfire, her heart racing, face flushed, and mind attuned to where he should be mere feet away.

The ritual seems simple. 

_This journey is not for the innocent. Prove your strength before the work you have done._

The marks are etched into the dirt in front of her, about fifteen minutes' worth of painstaking work to get perfectly right. She stares at them and wonders what could possibly prove the naivete she has lost in the face of everything she has seen.

Her eyes close as she stands above the roaring campfire. It takes no effort to draw her lightsaber, hold it to her stomach, and hold her intention clear in her heart and faith in her choice as she activates it to cut through her gut.

Rey feels nothing. She descends.

* * *

Within what feels like seconds, she feels her cheek against wet stone.

Her campfire is gone. There is no heat, no light besides the dimness of sunlight pouring through from the top of some crevice above. Wherever she is, it is damp, cold. She pushes herself to her feet, and as she lifts her head she recognizes where she is, and it recognizes her.

The dark heart of Ahch-To welcomes her and envelops her. The shadows hover at the edge of her vision as she stands sharp and still. All at once she remembers the sensation of the lightsaber ripping through her insides and presses a hand to her stomach in a flash, but she's whole, without the slightest wet of blood on her clothes. As she moves, Ahch-To sends a mirror image to her, its gaze steady and impassive.

"What do you want from me?" Rey asks, and makes herself look the mirror Rey in the face. She doesn't want to look at herself right now, and she thinks Ahch-To knows that.

It extends its hand, palm facing up, and she doesn't hear it aloud so much as echoing in her heart and mind, in Ben's voice.

_"Please."_

Rey holds strong for a solid thirty seconds before she blinks away one tear, another.

"What do I need to do?" she says, so soft it's barely audible and doesn't echo in the cave.

There's no answer. The mirror Rey's gaze is hot, cuts through her, and she thinks she knows, now, why she's here.

"This is the only way," she murmurs, to herself, though she doesn't really think she needs more convincing. She proved that she was willing to do anything, and this was what the Dark Side gave her.

She's back at the beginning. Another chance.

Rey closes her eyes for a moment, then steps forward, and meets her mirror image's eyes before seizing its hand.

Something wrenches inside her at the contact, and she buckles under the sudden pressure, images shoved into her mind, Ben's eyes defeated, Ben's mind shattered from rage, Ben's eyes searching hers for any hope of salvation, Ben needing her, Ben dead while she was helpless to save him. _What do you want from me?_ she tries to press through the images, her fingers fisted around the fabric at her knee and gripping the still solid hand of the mirror girl.

It says nothing, but the feeling sweeps over her with the sensation of watching the sky darken overhead with clouds full of soft rain.

The last image stays in her mind, flickering but intense, the young girl weeping as her parents disappeared from her sight forever.

_Everything has been taken from you, Rey._

_Take it back._

Has she ever truly accepted power? Has she ever allowed herself to feel like she deserves it?

It's time. She rises to her feet, and closes her eyes, letting the anger pour through her for once in her life.

For the first time, Rey _feels_ how she imagines everyone else must, in sharp and vivid sensations and color, before the power seizes her by the spine and yanks its way through her until it bleeds from her fingertips.

Everything is new, now. It's though she's staring through different eyes, lenses that show her the truth, and she wastes no time escaping the cave. The Falcon is there, and she climbs inside and takes off, without a single question on what the Dark Side has given her: a second chance to do this all the right way, not the _safe_ way, to truly save Ben Solo.

* * *

Snoke doesn't find Rey, and Rey doesn't find Snoke; it's more that the two meet halfway. She climbs out of the Falcon after it's pulled into Snoke's ship, and doesn't think twice before cutting through First Order soldiers as the briefest obstacles. She knows her way through this ship, has always had a sense for direction and will never forget her time on this ship with Ben beside her anyway, and kills indiscriminately as she makes her way to Snoke's throne room.

She's about halfway there when Kylo Ren appears, scarred, face forced expressionless at the sight of her, and her mouth quirks up in a wry smile. "Hello, Ben."

"What are you doing?" he asks, direct, gaze intent on her, searching in the way he always was, and the horrible pressing feeling of guilt bears down on her so hard she begins to laugh. " _Rey_ ," he snaps off.

"I'm doing what I need to do," Rey fires back, half-laughing, and the Dark Side grips her so intently she can feel its claws in her small of her back. "Ben. You'll come with me."

"No," Kylo Ren says, flat. "You'll come with _me_."

She lashes out instinctively, and he just barely manages to throw up the slightest defense against her; he backs up a few steps, eyes wide, and holds his ground. But he's weaker than she is. He lacks conviction, a weakness she gave up days ago.

"Ben," she bites out, smile light and sharp, and shoves hard at him until he starts to buckle, with every bit of him resisting.

"What are you doing," Ben demands, panic seeping into his tone. "What have you _done_?"

"Aren't you _listening_?" She throws the First Order troops that arrive into the wall, snapping one of their necks, and approaches Ben. His eyes are wild, confused, and unquestionably intrigued. She draws him to his feet with the Force, and puts some pressure on his neck to make her point clear. "You're coming with me."

"Yes," he whispers.

Rey releases him and gives him a gentle push forward before following him. She can feel his uncertainty, but she's caught him just at the point in the timeline where he'd fallen in love with her, where she'd fallen in love with him, though neither of them could've possibly admitted it. Now things are different, things can be the way they were meant to be.

She feels nothing as they kill the last wave of First Order troops before the door of Snoke's throne room.

Snoke laughs at the sight of Rey. "And so my dog has fetched what I've asked for," he says, utterly pleased. "Good, good." He gestures to seize Rey with the Dark Side, the smooth, overconfident words threatening to leave his mouth, when she deflects his attempt and presses back, striding forward against him.

"Boy," Snoke roars as he tries to withstand her.

There's silence as Rey moves forward through Snoke's resistance in the Force with her own power, then Ben says, "This is your fight, Supreme Leader."

"You are _mine_ , Kylo Ren," Snoke shouts in plain fury. "Kill the girl!"

"I can't," Ben says, tone even.

"What good are you?" Snoke snaps off. "Why have I tolerated _the son of Han Solo_ this long if you cannot follow a _single order_?"

Rey is just two feet away now. "You've lost," she says, and feels some strange glee bubbling up through her. "You've lost him, you've lost everything."

"I see," Snoke says, eyes glittering with something new. "You've surrendered to the Dark Side, girl. There is much I could teach you."

"I've done everything else on my own," Rey says; a terrible wildness, something utterly new, has broken through her. "I don't need you." She crashes her power through his in one swift motion of her hand, and exhales in satisfaction as she snaps his neck.

The room is silent for only a moment before the soldiers move in on her. She's gone too far, learning more and more about this deep well within her with each body that drops, an endless supply of perfect satisfaction. She only notices that Ben has joined the fight when he's deflected one of the blades from slicing across her arm, and they share a look for only a split second, one that says everything she needs to know.

This may not be what he expected, but it's what he wants. He wants her, at all costs. He would have killed Snoke for her, and now they're free to do whatever comes next.

When the last of them is dead, strangled, neck snapped, she lifts her head and turns to Ben. "I need to send a message," she says, a little smile playing on her lips.

"Yes," Ben says, emotion creeping into his tone, some kind of fear mingled with the overwhelming need she can feel radiating off of him now.

Rey crosses to him; as she touches his face, his eyes half-close, and she presses her forehead to his, relishing the contact.

"You'll stay with me."

She needs to know. The terrible fear in her heart that she'll forever feel the shadow of Ben Solo at her heels and by her side needs to be crushed by absolute certainty that she won't be alone. She can't be alone. Not anymore. Ahch-To proved that.

"Yes," Ben says, soft.

Rey kisses him, and almost subconsciously turns his mind to her so that it's more than just the simple contact, it's every aching bit of her being pressed to his, to remind him that she's here, _she's here_ , she'll never leave if he won't.

"The message," he murmurs after, his breaths just that much quicker.

She nods, and reluctantly moves away to stalk ahead, beyond relieved, with the slightest laugh to herself as they go.

* * *

She turns the tide of the war.

She knows too much about the rebellion. Not as much as some, but enough, she knows where to strike, she knows who to kill, she knows enough weak points to force them into near-collapse. They attempt to reach her, messages across lines, Finn begging her to remember who she is, Poe's insistence that Kylo Ren has broken her mind, but she pushes it all aside.

Their presence couldn't save her from the inevitable conclusion in the time before she seized her power at Ahch-To. Their little messages trying to buoy her spirits in the wake of his death weren't enough, their visits, none of it could keep the utter loneliness at bay. They all had their own lives, lives she never fit into, places she could never truly belong.

She belongs with him, and _this_ brought him back. _This_ has kept him with her.

Rey pins him harshly to the bed with the Force and straddles him, her fingertips running down his chest as he stares up at her. "Is this how you wanted it?" she asks.

"I wanted you," Ben says, eyes close on her face despite his plain desperation to get his hands on her bare skin. "I don't care how."

"Perfect," she murmurs, and begins to kiss him, over and over, until he's unconsciously resisting the Force pressing him down just to touch her. "No," she says, not unkindly, and slips her hand between them, against the only clothing he's got left, the hot fabric of his underwear. He arches against her touch, and she can't help but keen.

"Rey," he tries, his breath ragged. "Please."

It breaks too many feelings through her, and she kisses him fiercely to push it out of her mind, content to get him hard as best she can – she's not all that experienced by way of sex – and press him hot inside of her.

It's nearly too much as the dyad mingles them physically, mentally, spiritually; this was worth it all, this was worth piles of bodies shoved into incinerators, this throne she's taken is all worthwhile, because she finally has someone who _stays_ and _loves her_ and _accepts her_ no matter what she does.

The Dark Side breathes through her body, and she presses him harder into the bed by the throat with the Force; he resists, gasps, but she can feel him desperate for more. She stops her harsh riding on his cock, stays close around him, and just barely releases his throat.

"You're mine," she says, gaze close on his face.

His eyes lock onto hers, and she sees his assent clear in them. She releases the hold on his neck and kisses him, fierce and loving, and he speaks, barely audibly, when she moves barely an inch away.

"Anything," he says. "Anything you want."

"I know," Rey says, and strokes his cheek fondly; she closes her eyes and starts to move again, rolling her hips and establishing a harsh rhythm that seems to make him ache, but he doesn't resist. She gasps and releases Ben, desperate for his hands on her, and he pulls her tight against him, fingertips pressing into her hips and tight into her hair as they kiss and kiss. She moans, soft, into his mouth, near some kind of peak, and he shudders, hands gripping even more closely as the dyad spills them both over, one after another, into coming.

"Oh," Rey breathes, too overwhelmed to move or think or do more than stay close to Ben in that moment.

"Rey." Ben's voice is soft, near breaking, and he doesn't have to say what comes next, what he'll always struggle to say. She knows, and it's the one thing that's got her through.

* * *

"Tell me," Rey says, tone light, her fingers twisting slightly in Ben's hair as he kneels beside her throne.

"One cell remains." Hux doesn't like her. She doesn't care. She's taken care to break him once or twice, to make him kneel, and he seems to have mostly resigned himself. "We can handle the situation." There's a question, unstated, but there.

" _We'll_ handle it," Rey answers, turning the prospect of it all being over, once and for all, in her head. "Ben?"

"I'm ready," Ben says, eyes raising to meet hers.

"Good." Rey smiles, and draws him to his feet to share a brief kiss.

Everyone deserves a second chance.


End file.
